RAP Poetry Response: Un-Conversation

"I can never forget those first deep pangs of birth pains. It was like nothing I had ever felt...nothing I could explain. The hurt came from deep inside. From change."

- Laura Boggess, from a comment on my blog

Un-Conversation

The "first deep pangs"
left me shaking aware
I wasn't who I had been or
who I had become or
who I would be

she spoke
the first deep words
that defined the feeling

and I answer back,
"yes, it is change, it is
this inside-hurt
so many have felt

and shared

with me." There is

no conversation required
among us who have been
changed, just
pensive waiting in
community
communion as we ache for

joy

grown from
tears, and
strength in trembling labor when
who we are

emerges into Life that makes us
who we are meant to be.

-----------------------------

Written for L.L. Barkat's Random Acts of Poetry prompt at High Calling Blogs. Leave your own poem for "In Conversation" at her blog today, for a link and possible feature at HCB!

Oh, and that 12 Days of Community thing she mentions at the bottom of her post today? Check it out - or try it out! There are some pretty cool peoples involved in it recently. Wish I had energy to participate!





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

By Grace - A Restless Heart Seeks Rest

An Anonymous Critique

You are. such. a navelgazer. which means. self focused. always thinking. about yourself. under. the guise. of thinking. about God.

sorry, kelly. i'm leaving. never to read your blog again.

You failed.

-MI

Words that greeted me from my inbox this morning, an anonymous comment left on Monday's rather brain-fogged post. Cruel words calculated to wreak heart-havoc. A voice of accusation, condemnation, dismissal.

They sink deep.

I've heard them before.

They don't affect me the way they once did.

I know they don't carry the weight of Jesus-come-in-the-flesh-to-die-and-be-raised-to-Life-again. The spirit behind the words doesn't understand grace that frees to cling to a Savior.

I know what I am. I am a navel-gazer. I am self-focused. I am human.

But I don't seek to disguise myself by talking about God. Really, the fact that I talk about Him at all gives testimony to His work in me.


A Place in God's Heart

You see, about a year ago, I gave up altogether on God. The idea of being crucified with Christ, of having everything I wanted stripped away from me with no promise of reward but God Himself - there was no appeal in it. Why should I try to serve and love Someone whose stated care for me is entirely based in His own glory?

I almost hated Him then for wanting to use me when I had the sense that the God of the Universe did not really care about me at all.

Thus my heart was grieved,
And I was vexed in my mind.
I was so foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.

- Psalm 73:21-22

God destroyed my limited concept of Him. My world went silent, a strained silent listlessness that gradually eased into "wait."

In the waiting, I began to see that He is more than I can define. Or understand. Or manipulate. Or control.

And I saw something else. That His love for me prompted God to come to earth as a Man and die. For me.

Yes, I am self-focused.

We who love Him love because He first loved us, and gave Himself for us. If we are all honest, we must admit that our only point of reference for the reality of His love is - and must be - based in our own experience and understanding of what He did for us individually.

To say otherwise is to leave our humanity behind. To dismiss our need for grace. To grasp equality with God. To raise ourselves to a position to judge the weak and the fool that God has chosen for Himself.

I am the weak. I am the fool.

Yet I am not ashamed.


Good News Most Sufficient

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..."

- Philippians 1:6

To be holy as Jesus is holy, to be perfect and complete in God's sight, this is a work no one knows how to complete but the God who Himself is perfect. It must be His work, for all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

The knowledge burns within my soul as I scribble here my daily ponderings, my rambles, my random. As a fool, I do not seek to cloak myself or my sin; as weak, I do not try to hide my questions or my oft-misplaced desires.

When I consider God, I do consider myself. I consider who I am in relation to Him, who He is in relation to me. And He often calls me to realize Him outside of me, but even this leads back to my heart, which responds to Him with worship. I am at times undone by Him.

Every word I speak is not His. One post from my blog does not encompass the whole story of this girl who once wanted to be something for God. Her story got rearranged. Now, she knows He will be God in spite of her.

And yet He died for her. He has chosen her to know Him. Given her this faith that she could not dredge up in a million years of trying. Predestined her to good works. Given her His Spirit as a seal upon her heart.

Oh yes, I have failed. Oh, thank GOD I have failed.

You see, I know all is not lost.

I have been redeemed already. I am being sanctified. I may give thanks for self-focused things when I am brain-fogged and still learning to speak again of God. I may live my whole life in the dust that I am and walk by this faith He has given that He Himself is my perfection, knowing that Jesus became sin for me so that I could become the righteousness of God in Him.

This is all my glory, this Christ who took on flesh. He is the Good News that brings me boldly to the throne of Grace to freely obtain mercy I have not deserved.


Faith Not My Own

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:8-11

It would be ludicrous for me to say that this reckoning happens overnight. It would be a lie for me to say that I am every day overwhelmed by this Gospel.

But this Eternal God, the Alpha and Omega I AM who is both Beginning and End - He does not live on my daily schedule. He exists outside of time, and His work begun in me is His to complete.

I feel like a child before Him sometimes. Puttering around at His feet, living in my dailiness, changing diapers, writing words from my limited perspective, cleaning house, preparing for a new baby, learning to pray, learning to notice His goodness in my life and giving only small, self-focused thanks when He gives me something I want.

By the grace of God, I am what I am.

"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:26-35, 37-39

I - who am nothing - have known His faithfulness, so much greater than my small faith, faithful from this God who swears by Himself and keeps His Word.

I am willing to wait for His promise. And this, I know, is Him in me.

Forgive my earth-puttering, please. He is still at work.

------------------------


This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday. It is a little off-topic, but this is what His advent means for me, how it changes my life. This is why I seek Him.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Sometimes the sun gets in your eyes...

And even the making-do is content.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

The Word - a Meditation on John 1

In the beginning...

It was the right place to start, the same place the story of our being had begun when Moses had written it long before. But his story was different. It was about the world, but it wasn't. It was about a Man, the God-Man whose love he had known.

In the beginning was the Word...

The Word, a Person, not inscribed on any page, inscribed on every page, 33 years and eons of being that would never be written, for all the volumes in all the world could not contain Him.

The Word was with God, and the Word was God...

I imagine his pen, pausing over the scratched-ink words he'd written, imagining his Friend at the beginning, spinning world and universe and tree and flower and heart in His image, sense his wonder as he repeats himself:

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Telling His story, telling our story, the part we didn't know from Moses' telling, the redemption planned from the very foundation of the world, set from the beginning of time, the defeat of Satan before he ever deceived Eve, drew Adam into sin.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

As he wrote, searing pain at what he had seen mingled with joyful incredulity, sunset and sunrise at once, beginning and end tangled up in I Am, Alpha and Omega, incarnation and Resurrection, the Son of Man who was God who was Life and Light, who was his Friend, Jesus.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Spirit-born again into God-inheritance, drawn by something higher than reason, redemption greater than the fulfillment of the Law - the words flowed faster now, passion-driven, aching with understanding that had seemingly dawned too late for him.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth... And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Breath stopped for just a moment as he penned words Jesus Himself had spoken and realization wakened fresh so that he thought his heart would burst with the aching wonder of what he had seen.

All this time, He, John, had been walking with God.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

what it means

"To begin."

This asks for more than a "be still," for more than a "someday" dream. Beginning begs me to leave old demons behind where they belong, face new ones, older ones that make me do what I do - or that hold me back. It demands a step beyond inert - just one, but if I stop, I know I'll have to begin again, take another.

It means reaching out with what is real of me for what is real in others who may reject me. It means starting over, learning again about a world to live in, not just observe. Old friendships fading as they always do, new relationship birthed and worked and enjoyed.

Beginning asks for my nothing and my mess and my heart without wings and says, "fly, you know you want to." And I do want to -

So I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.
Indeed, I would wander far off,
And remain in the wilderness.
I would hasten my escape
From the windy storm and tempest.”

- Ps. 55:6-8

I want to fly away, escape, shut my ears to my windy, stormy two-year-old, find a quiet place - even the wilderness - to just get some rest. Doing one. more. thing. seems too much; I almost resent the baby within I want so much, because I am never really alone.

To begin - it means more than merely acknowledging a God I have once almost-rejected. It means trusting Him to raise my eyes from the ground to look into eyes without begging for relief, unafraid of condemnation, unashamed that I have met and know God-who-is-Real.

Don't I want to begin? Why don't I?

The questions pierce, the echoes of sister-conversation draw tears and memory unbidden; I wonder if I hold my breath and close my eyes - might it all go away, that sinking sense of failure, that I am not what I meant to be, not what He means me to be, not today as I had hoped.

Maybe I have begun already? In places unseen, in quiet conversation with my husband, in moments of happy and deep-set joy in what God has given me that I could not have asked? Maybe I have begun in toddler-hugs and relationship-reaching, in active waiting for God-timing I don't control?

He knows me, doesn't He? - The aching cry in my soul begging Him not to be too much for me, ask too much of me now when I don't know me or how to begin conversation with Him. I run out of words and putter at His feet, afraid to look up into His eyes too.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel:

“ My way is hidden from the LORD,
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

- Is. 40:27-31

Oh yes, I know. I've always known. I believe. It feels as if I always have.

Lord, please... help my unbelief.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

undefined

I've been blocked for content lately.

Not that the birds aren't still singing, the breezes blowing, the sun rising and setting, the clouds dropping rain and humid all over the place - bringing out the mosquitoes...

I could blame it on the tired that has me sleeping dead through the night from the time I hit the pillow, drowsing through the morning until my three-or-so-hour stint on the couch to relieve the sitting-up pressure from my growing baby belly. I could blame it on the toddler who is pushing all of her boundaries and asking for new ones as she goes, requiring more of my imaginative power. I could even blame it on the photography processing looming over me for a finish this month.

But I'm not sure that is the problem. I'm not sure there is a problem.
Something is happening, far beneath the surface of my daily life and worn-out responsibilities, something that began years ago with a niggling longing and a prayer that I should desire God more than anything or anyone else. I can't describe it, but I am aware, aware that He is drawing nearer, drawing me nearer - and if I turn and look at Him, stop and listen, I will find more than a lesson, more than a growth opportunity, more than the comfortable, controllable, explainable.

It almost frightens me; I don't run toward it eagerly. I take it measured, as a gift I don't know how to open, don't quite know how to receive, love that comes after a broken heart, so strong and so patient. I acknowledge it, and it travels deep into heart-quiet as I ponder what I know of it - what I know of Him.

Tears come easily, frustration easier; I am tenderized without my consent between toddler interruptions and disappointed expectations and my shallow daily failure.

How do I write this? So many others have written it better. How do I live this? It is yet undefined, and my humanity demands a to-do list for self-improvement. My grammatical conscience demands a defined "it."

"What is stopping you?" a friend asks, encouraging me to embrace the new, as I encourage others. "Nothing," I want to say, "It is unfolding here inside me, filling me up, taking me over, transforming me, renewing me."

It is a me I do not know, broken, redeemed, freed, and broken again for love of Another who invites my soul up into Himself, into Love that isn't my love, love I couldn't choose in the small strength I own, love I couldn't accept for my timid.

I wonder if I am too isolated, if I should surround myself with people for more insight, a more constant flow of ideas; I sense His quiet "be still" in a wilderness I thought was finished. Here I stand on the far bank of the Jordan, waiting the call to cross into Canaan, waiting the will to go, waiting for the parting of the waters I cannot pass on my own.

I think there are not often words for the circumstances of the spirit, not definitions for the steps we take in the journey our hearts travel toward God, with God.

So I stand still to see the salvation of the Lord.

Because there is really nothing else I can do until He bids me step into the river with Him to walk through - or to walk on water.





(Image "paint me a picture of this cloudy day" © Informal Moments Photography)

After Egypt

Here
in unvaried wilderness-waiting, I
write from real, from
what I've seen, from
what I've heard. And

sometimes
I write real from what I don't
remember
because I dreamed it once.

So I stare at me
in red light cast out from spinning
Pillar-Fire
and ask

the stranger, "who were you in my
dream?"
she does not answer - I do not
answer the question
- but I know I am not her

anymore, aching
to be what I cannot be, trying
to fit into old life, etching
desert sleep-sketches of
fuller times, omitting
realer, emptier, leaner times,

being
who I was, who
she was, who I
imagined I'd be when I was finally
free

from my slavery.

I write her down, and

she breathes
onto my paper, bleeds remember
into non-remembery, trades
old food for manna
and I wake alive in spite of
her wistful memory-nature

Clock reads early,
late,
past time
for goodbyes.

She was me; I do not
regret her, and I cannot
despise the shadowy fingers weaving
dream-gray wilderness into
tabernacle-tapestry

as a flaming sun rises on now-settled sea spread out
behind
and Pillar becomes
Cloud.

-------------------------------

Written in response to L.L. Barkat's poetry prompt - answering the question, "Who were you in my dream?"

The Gift in the Ache

Sometimes, I want this more than I want Canaan, more than I want to live the faith that led me out of my chosen earth-home to follow my husband where God opened a door for him, for us. Sometimes, my lip quivers and I swallow tears, watching light and countryside and memories I have loved flash past, peeling away with a lingering ache behind our car as I ride back into yellow and scrabbled foliage and heated flatlands that just aren't home.

It is time, I know, to let God lead us, and He does in His time, in His way that is not my way. It is very vulnerable, this faith of mine that hopes, hopes, hopes He might lead us back to a place we know and love, while living grateful where I am, learning to love a new place for what He has given, despite the biting bugs and allergic humidity and soupy yellow light. And when He gives good, the holding-it-loosely feels as though it will break me apart with the constant knowledge that it won't last, it can't last, I can never be home here, because my heart-home is with Him, beholding Him, more complete in Him than I can fathom or dream or imagine.

I wonder where Canaan is, wishing it was here, half-praying an earth-fulfillment of the promise, knowing and groaning with an ache and a hope that wasn't mine before Jesus, before His Spirit filled me up with desire to be one with a heavenly Father, my Abba who cares for me.

It is a repeated theme, a constant reminding ouch to redirect my eyes from here to hope, an unfulfilled wish, thwarted desire that draws me into Desire Himself. And joy is quiet, glory-light seeping into my heart through diamond-tears, crystal-tears, salt-and-water-tears, something outside my dust. I see His faithfulness. I learn to trust His slow working that feels too slow, but must happen in His time, when He brings morning after the night.

It is time, I know, to be grateful, and I will learn rest again, because I know He is good.

Is this contentment, this whole-body-ache that keeps me stayed in Him? I probe and I ponder and I cautiously assess His gifts, Himself, the Truth that is a Person, the Word that is not mere words, that lives powerful in me and binds my heart up with Him.

And in the all-I-want-and-do-not-have, I have found the real, the grateful,

the small house that is not too small,
the baby boy growing and living in me,
the little girl learning new words and new love
parent hugs and sister hugs,
and little-brother salvation to leave me speechless
one soft night in my home-bed
and enough. Today, I have enough

and God is good and He is who He says He is, and I am not afraid.

------------------------


This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

nothing so encouraging as His Spirit

When we first met, it wasn't yet time. God had work to do, and we waited wondering, sensing His hand, learning to rest, finding each one another.

Then Sunday morning sunlight came through coffee-shop windows to light quiet praise and just a few that were left - and us with our oddly quiet child. And God was simply there, comforting, smiling out at us through encouraged eyes and genuine greetings.

"You've moved a bit," I commented, and the pastor shared new, humble wisdom from sad wise eyes that were young only months ago. "We wanted to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit," he said, and my heart leaped and my eyes filled and I knew I could sing here, we could serve here. His Spirit was here.

He works in higher, hopeful ways; His timing is sure and perfect. His gifts to us may be for this time, for these people in His Body, whose home is His heart, whose wounded hearts seek to walk with Him by faith as they watch dear friends walk away.

So we tremble forward across our own fears and wounds and misgivings, and we know He is near with courage for us. This courage may be morning light filtering through coffee shop windows into the soft dark night of our healing, of their healing, and joy comes soft and real.

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Eph. 4:1-6)

Measure His Grace

Pete woke me early this morning. I had asked him to consider waking me around six so I could have a little time for myself, start the day as a morning person again, the way I used to do. That extra hour and a half makes a huge difference on my day. I don't wake up feeling defeated because I missed my early window. I don't resent the sun so much as I normally do for being up hours before I wake.

I've never really been a "quiet time" person. My intentional times with God seem to happen spontaneously - our relationship is pretty dynamic. I suppose you might say I take advantage of His omnipresent access and keep a pretty current line going with Him. Perhaps this is praying without ceasing. Or walking with God. I'd like to think so, anyway.

I pulled my journal out this morning, almost appalled that it has been over a year since I last wrote. I trip over myself in writing sometimes, too afraid of my own embarrassment over what I have written, forgetting that writing is for me a large part of becoming. I wrote five pages today, in small print, with no particular topic or goal, no deep truth to discover. I just dumped the words with pencil onto paper and laid it out. I even wrote a bit of a letter to God, a more coherent prayer than the heaven-aimed emotion I've directed His way lately.

As I wrote, a question surfaced: "Why is so much of life a 'being where we are' as we wait for Him to move in us?"

And I think it is because this is what it is to grow in grace. It is not that I need more grace than I have already in Christ; it is that I wait for His work in my heart knowing how far short I fall, knowing that even in my failure, Jesus completes me so that I may rest in the Lord.

I've been so overwhelmed lately. Every day, I wake up, determined to try again to be a better wife, a better mom, a better person. Most days, I'm so tired, I can barely get through the day, let alone make the investment I want to make in my personal goals. I've been very close to giving up recently. I've wished I didn't have to care about Pete and Piper and Button, wished I didn't have to take care of myself every day, wishing I could just forget about eating another meal, taking another pill, showering, doing anything with my hair, getting dressed.

I am not who I want to be. I am not what I feel I need to be. It is hard for me to fall into grace this way, weak and struggling. I'm embarrassed to present what little I have and hope that it will somehow be enough for Piper to know she is loved, for my husband to know he is loved. I hope God will be able to make something of it, because I am at the end of me, all the time.

Grace that sustains me in my weakness - that is the daily bread for which I long. Most days, I don't get around to asking very coherently. I sometimes think of grace as "time." Time to grow, to be, to struggle, to wonder at the patience of the One who is changing me into His image, perfecting me beneath the covering blood of Jesus.

Sweet gospel that offers such time and rest and grace, that I may know Him even in my weakness and foolish imperfection. It is Life, measured daily in that eternal sphere only my spirit comprehends, that time outside of time where God lives and works and frees and changes me.

And strangely enough, I've been moved to real praise of late, praise that comes from a place in me I didn't create and don't always understand, praise and honor for His Godness, for the transformation He is working in my heart, for the gift of Him He has given to me, for the working of His will and the hope of His return that draws my fears into His Love.

Today, I'm dressed and my daughter is dressed. Our house is picked up, and our beds are made. Breakfast has been made and eaten, and my pills have been taken. Button is happily kicking away at me, hoping I will unbutton my jeans and give the baby more room, I am sure.

I hope to continue my early mornings. I don't want to plan what I will do every day; today I had time to measure His grace. I needed that.

(image from sxc)

Imagine

I know it is summer,
But I am wrapping Christmas gifts
and watching autumn leaves fall
and hoping for snow,
just like always.
I am living in a house I love
with weather that is cool and clear
and I am happier there than I am here,
aren't I?

At least, I imagine I am.

If all my dreams come true,
from cool autumn sunsets
and a front porch swing with apple cider,
to white Christmases
and soft cool springs
to green grass and real trees
and the things I've grown up loving
surrounding me,
I can be content.

At least, I imagine I can.

But homesick will always be my coming home;
sometimes my dreams aren't meant for me.
It is in this longing
that I groan
imagining happy that is not mine
desire thwarted by a larger Heart who knows
my peace is Him,
and He will never leave me nor forsake me.

And I imagine He is enough
but it hurts sometimes because I am here
and I cry a lot
because He doesn't look like what I want.

But He knows what I cannot imagine
and He says He is more than that
and hope that is seen
isn't hope at all.

So faith is more than I imagine
not blind leaping in the dark
but sure enough so I can walk
and weep
and ask with open hands
and hear God's loving "Wait"
and I do not despair
of His goodness to me.

An Evening in My Town

There was actually a breeze coming off the water. I didn't notice it until we had left the couple we were there to photograph. They headed into the downtown area, and Pete and I walked hand in hand across the grass for a few minutes before Piper decided she wanted to rush ahead and get into the fountain. I carried her and Pete carried the camera equipment and we mused about Charleston in the summer and how lovely the scented breeze was, how alive we felt in the lingering remnants of the sunset that had ended my shoot.

I am slowly learning to love this place, from the little homey things we're doing in the house we rent to the only-20-minute commute to the beach. I suppose you could say I am learning to rest here, learning the value of waiting on God, learning for the first time, really, what that means. And as I find my heart settling down, I know I will miss even this when we must go again, and I remember that my home is not here anyway.

I wonder if I will miss the soft embrace of the darkness at sunset. I hope that when I get to that heavenly city God is preparing, I can have a mansion that is a cottage beside both the mountains and the sea, with seasons and lots of grass. I imagine God knows what I want more than I know, though, so I content myself with the dreams for now, until His reality outshines them.

Still, I thought I'd share a little of this evening we enjoyed in our town.

Rose Gold is Here Too

Homesick is getting harder to come by.

Rain

The morning sky is grim today. Exhausted. Determined.

My office windows are speckled with water; a thin curtain of mist softens my view of the neighbors' tired brick ranch that looks like every other tired brick ranch in our neighborhood. I am glad we live in the little blue house with white trim.

It is all here, my life laid out in front of me, raw, open, visible, unchangeable yet existing in the throes of transformation beyond my control. It is what it is, I am what I am, and somehow in it all, He is here and making me.

I get up to get Piper down from her perch; she has a banana now. The playing cards are all over the kitchen floor. I turn up the heat. The humidity here seeps into me.

I think about choices, how I will never know enough to choose enough. My heart, being replaced and renewed, is still unknowable for He fills me with Himself, and He is unfathomable. Adam and Eve didn't know right from wrong once, and they walked with Him. They chose right and wrong and we all followed, forgetting Him.

The who, the why, the how - the questions bother me. I am unfinished. The raindrops on my window distort the world outside; my mirror is dark this morning. I am glad - so much is already revealed in me.

What makes me different from any other woman? It is not what I say. It is not a better attitude. I don't complain less or pray more; I am imperfect. I am broken, breaking - no, I am being broken.

And I am being made whole.

Is it His love that makes the difference? I think it must be, for it was love that brought Him to the Cross.

I don't always know how to talk with Him. That is what prayer is, you know. An ongoing conversation. We make it into a wish-list.

I am tired. That is all I have been able to say recently. How did Isaiah put it? I am Undone.

Today I don't mind the rain. Sometimes the gray reveals more than the sunlight. Have you ever noticed how the colors contrast with the clouds?

The Last Day

I normally take the last day of the year to write out my prayer for the new year. It usually includes a list of things I want to see God do during the upcoming year, for me or for someone in my life. I'm not sure I wrote anything down this year, not officially, anyway, so I don't have much to report in terms of request-fulfillment. More than anything this year, I think I wanted God to be the way He was to me a few years ago. I felt betrayed because of an unanswered prayer, unsure of His heart, yet very sure of His terrible Godness that was God in spite of anything I wanted.

This year, I'd like to try something different. I want to look back and remember what He did in my life. I want my eyes to be open to see what new thing He will do this year.

It's been a long year - with two moves, Pete's Bar exam and passage, a relapse deep into Lyme, new adventures into motherhood, and an encounter with God and His love that completely changed my life. I feel as though I've lived several years.

This year, I unintentionally trusted God to do the work in my life and heart to change me. For a long time, I've talked about it being His job, and always, I would step in and take over.

This year, I came to the end of myself. I had absolutely nothing left to give, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I felt as though God didn't care about me, that He would do whatever He wanted regardless of how it would affect me. I didn't want to be used by Him. I didn't want Him doing something for Himself without giving me anything I wanted. I clung to my fear of Him because it was familiar. I clenched my dreams and desires and loved ones to myself, holding it back from Him, forgetting - no, denying - His goodness.

In the past, I'd been good. I'd talked about Him. I'd served Him. I'd served others. And when push came to shove, He'd let me down with the biggest crash I've ever experienced.

At least, that was the way I saw it. And I pretty much didn't need Him if He wasn't going to make my world what I wanted it to be.

So I quit. I quit hoping, quit praying, quit trying.

And all He kept saying was that He loved me. Again and again and again. "I love you. I love you. I love you." I ignored Him. What good was His love to me?

It was mid-August when He revealed the answer to that question. The increasing depression combined with a job offer we couldn't accept that was followed by a nasty rent situation finally turned my focus heavenward. I stopped justifying God for being God and let Him have the years of pent-up rage and pain. At the top of my lungs. I screamed and screamed and screamed at Him.

He was there. And He said He loved me.

I posted last week about the long, slow sigh these last months have been for me. I will always remember the last months of 2008 as a time of discovery, renewal, revival, relationship.

God brought me to the end of me. I am less than I was, and it feels that He is so much more. After this year, I can no longer filter how He feels about me through my circumstances.

As I stand on the brink of a new year, I know what it is to be free. I am beginning to know what it means to really live. I know what it is to be loved. I know what it is to live forgiven, without condemnation. I feel my passion for Him being renewed, deepened, purified.

I know He is doing something new in me, something that makes me look at myself differently, something lends to the discovery that I have unconsciously reached outside of myself.

He is very big, and very good. He is patient, and so kind. He is gentle, and He is firm in His gentleness. He likes me.

I don't really want to ask Him for anything this year except to know Him. My work is believing that Christ is enough. That I can come through the Cross to have a relationship with my Abba without needing to add anything on the side.

I'm not going to waste time trying to crucify myself (there's not a lot of logic there). I am crucified already with Christ. I need the Gardener to prune my branch as I abide in the Vine.

Faith is not a blind leap into the dark based on the hope that something is true. Faith is substance, hard evidence. It is not something I can manufacture by gritting my teeth and trying to have more faith. It is the gift of God. It comes by hearing, Paul says, and hearing by the Word of God. The Word who became flesh, who died for us and gave us His Life. I hear the Word as He speaks through His Spirit into my heart.

On the last day of this year, I don't know what to ask. I am learning to be cautious with my desire, to wait to see what God will reveal. I am still a bit afraid to ask for more of Him because I know He can use difficult circumstances in my life to reveal Himself to me. And I am tired.

But I know what He is done, and I can say, "Come and see. Come and see what He has done. Come and see what He will do. Come and see who He is." Maybe I'll make Canaan this year.

Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doing toward the sons of men.

- Ps. 66

(Image from SXC)

Tuesday.

Tomorrow, life as we have known it will change. Our world is spinning out of control. The things we wanted to live and to have and to give to our children may not be possible anymore.

It's not worth holding our breath. Or freaking out. Or being fatalistic. Our life, if it is in God, will still be in Him who holds tomorrow. His presence will go with us, and He will give us rest. His Kingdom is not of this world. America is not the promised land.

I cherish His sovereignty the most when the world explodes. It's not going to take God by surprise. His heart for us will not change. We have nothing to fear. Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Take heart. He is our salvation. Our hope is in Him who made heaven and earth, who holds the king's heart.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Dreaming Differently

I don't have time or energy to write out all the things that have been happening in my heart over the last month. I've wondered where the books are from people who have really walked into relationship with the Lord. Now I'm suspecting that they don't exist because it is the stuff of poetry, of lyrics, of volumes and oceans and mountains.

It has to be lived.

No one else can tell you how to walk with God. He treats each of us individually. He is not a God of generalizations. He is a God of hearts. And he doesn't create anything exactly the same. This used to boggle my mind. Out of millions and billions of snowflakes, none of them are identical. Actually, I guess it still boggles my mind.

No heart that He has created is like another heart. We have similar personalities and tendencies, and we all share a sin nature that is constantly striving with God for mastery of our lives, but each of our hearts has a deep beauty and a life story all our own. Somehow, in the coming and going and rising and falling and climbing and flying of life, this story is all about Him - whether we know Him or we don't, whether we choose Him or deny Him.

A month ago, I admitted something to God about the way I feel about Him. Or about the way I feel about how He feels about me.

For a couple of years, He has consistently been telling me that He loves me.

"Yeah God, I know."

But I didn't. I'm still not sure I do. Not to the depth or the height or the width or the breadth of it. I feel like I'm gingerly stepping into the ocean of His love, afraid of the big waves. "Just little ones, please God. It's so beautiful, I just want to stand here on the shore and..." ache to be lost in that expanse I see.

My admission to God was this: "I don't matter to You."

This is why I've been ducking Him. This is why I've been trying not to be noticed. This is why I have been angry, why I have pushed Him away, why I have not let myself feel or cry or try.

There was a wound. There was an illness. There was a crazy cycle of attempts to trust and hope and keep dreaming and keep loving and keep praising.

But nothing happened. The wound didn't heal. The illness didn't disappear, but worsened. The attempts felt more and more shallow, and eventually ended.

Four summers ago, after nine days in the hospital and no diagnosis, I found out that God cared more about His work than about me personally. And no amount of truth-telling could answer the lie that fixed itself in my heart the day I left the hospital.

There was a doctor who needed to hear the name of Jesus Christ. God told me to speak it to him. I fudged it the first time... and I stayed in the hospital two more days. On the day I left, he returned to my room for no explicable reason. "Dr. ____, I'm supposed to speak the name of Jesus Christ to you." This man, with all his education, his new age philosophies, and his answers, drew back from a sick girl who had peace as if he'd been slapped.

And I hated God for it. I knew I'd see this man in heaven.

There was a nurse who broke down in tears as she said goodbye to me, telling me that she was a believer who had been too afraid to speak for God in her job. The witness we had in the hospital night after night as we prayed and yakked about God had really challenged her to share Him with others.

And I hated God for that. I had no answers, and I was leaving with no hope that I was going to get any.

I walked away from that experience knowing that God was always faithful to Himself. Always pursing His glory. Always working out His plan.

And it didn't have anything to do with me. Not really.

At least, that is what I thought.

I am still sick. I will probably be sick for the rest of my life. The wound I carry may always be the thorn in my heart to keep me real. The reconciliation I prayed for may never happen. We had to leave our first home. We just uprooted from the place I've come to know as home over the years. I'm not cut out to be a great mom, and I'm too selfish to be a good wife.

At least, I thought, I have my dreams. But one by one, I've watched them fizzle and die. I get something I think I want, and I can't hold onto it. It becomes a burden. It becomes more than I can handle. All I can see is the dream that wasn't my dream. All I can see is that I can't have them. And I know better than to ask God for them.

The week we left for Charleston, as I was apologizing to God for my anger with Him, He pointed out that He knew how much it hurt. Told me it was okay to cry. To grieve.

Do you think that in grieving, we learn to let go? That perhaps in acknowledging that the dream is gone, we allow Him to enter the loss and fill the void with Himself?

We decided yesterday not to make an offer on our dream house that is now under contract with someone else. We had crunched and re-crunched the numbers. The $6,000+ we spend every year for my health needs clinched the decision for us. If not for that...

But I noticed something different in my reaction. Instead of resentment, instead of hedging my bets and assuming that God wasn't going to let it work because what I wanted didn't matter to Him, I realized that my hands were open. I didn't want to push it to work just because it seemed so perfect for us. We needed a miracle for it to happen the way I wanted it to, and while we could have done it, it would have been so, so hard for us in the long run.

I know that I matter to God now. I don't know when that happened or how it changed. His pursuit of me probably has a lot to do with that. He keeps telling me that He's everything that matters. He's my inheritance and my portion. I'm grudgingly beginning to accept this. I think this is faith, living believing, even if He isn't visible or manifesting Himself in tangible blessings.

I think this is part of knowing Him. I can't just surrender everything in one walk down an aisle. There is too much of me for that. Too much of Him for that. It's strange. I used to think He wanted everything - all my desires, all my dreams. But now, I think He's not even interested in all that. He just wants me. He just loves me. He doesn't need me to be happy or content or fulfilled or cool so that he can want me.

Anymore than He needed Dr. _____ to believe in Him so that He could love him. Anymore than He needed the nurse at the hospital to be telling everyone about Him so that He could be Himself with her.

I don't have to be used by Him to be loved by Him.

Is it in being loved then, that we are used? It's not our attempts to get into ministry or say the right thing or reach out to others?

I am learning that being human and living in our fallen world means that we groan. We bear a wound that will not heal until our ultimate restoration with God Himself. I think perhaps I experience this groaning more deeply than some simply because I am such a passionate person, because I do dream.

Is He really worth it? I wonder this. I can't be honest and not wonder this. If He is who He says He is, I think He is worth it. But living in the light of that... well, who He says He is will take me a lifetime to discover. And then some.

I am ashamed now of what was in my heart about the people He wanted to touch in the hospital, but I hope that someday, I will really rejoice when He chooses to use me.

You know how you feel when someone you love has a dream come true? When they get something they have really wanted? You know how the best feeling in the world is seeing someone you love have the time of his life? I think I want to love God that much. I think this is how He feels about us.

Here Now

Two years ago, I shot this photo at the beach near Charleston on our anniversary. Didn't know then we'd be living here today...

"The psalmist implies--"O Lord, You are the God of the early mornings, the God of the late nights, the God of the mountain peaks, and the God of the sea. But, my God, my soul has horizons further away than those of early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize. My God, search me." ~Oswald Chambers

He is I Am - Part II

We move in less than two weeks.

We planned to stay in this area for at least a year, but in the space of a week, everything changed.

Because Pete's replacement had been hired at his current job, he had been working long hours as a floating legal assistant. He was exhausted and with the new commute, wasn't getting home until after six some nights. He had received one offer from his current employer that we were unable to accept, and the pressure to leave was mounting. My stress levels were soaring. The exhaustion was getting worse. The convulsions were back. The house we're living in now doesn't have enough sunlight, and my depression had been worsening.

Pete was looking for a job in Northern VA. No one responded to his queries. He started looking in CA. No one responded.

Two weeks ago yesterday, an email came in with an ad for a legal assistant at a firm in Charleston. Pete responded, asking if they had any use for an attorney.

Within three days, they had garnered his salary/benefit requirements, resumé and Pete's commitment to an interview. Everything seemed to be falling into place. We began to get excited. The job was something Pete could enjoy. It would offer him the experience he needed to get a higher-paying attorney job either in Northern VA or in California. The cost of living in Charleston was right. We'd get to be near Gabe for a while. Buying raw milk was legal. Home birth was legal. Housing was 60% lower than it is in Northern VA. We could afford to buy.

I could see us settling down for five years. I could see getting a chance to rest, to treat the Lyme disease, to get some sunlight. I imagined getting a second car, having money for little extras, being able to have another baby.

The day after the interview, Pete received a job offer.

It was too low.

I went into a tailspin that spiraled away from the surface issues of job and house toward the resentment for God that lay in my heart.

By the time the spinning slowed for me, Pete had requested and was granted a higher salary and moving expenses. His new boss offered a house for us to rent month-to-month for a very affordable price while we looked for more permanent housing. Some friends of ours showed interest in taking over our lease. We were definitely moving.

And I had tried to stop looking at my circumstances as proof of God's care for me.

The last two weeks have been so spiritually intense I will never be able to explain in full everything that has happened. I suspect that perhaps it will trickle out as life goes on.

Realistically, I can't think my life will be perfect when we move to Charleston. In all the moves I've made (20-some), I loved the feeling of starting fresh, being a new person with new people who might like my new person. (They didn't, usually, but you can't say I didn't have enough chances to try.) This move is different. We may start over outwardly, but I will still carry the same heart down there with me. I think this is the first move I have ever made in which I am going with God, not with my own agenda.

I'm scared. It don't want to rent and move again. We're not sure we can afford to buy a house. I'm afraid that in letting go of my managerial approach to my circumstances, they will go whipping out of control. We don't have a ready-made support system in Charleston. Our landlord is getting married in September and is really not pleased with the situation. I don't want to move with my wedding photo-processing unfinished, and I'm not sure I can finish it.

Today, I know that God has not given me a spirit of fear. Even fear of God does not look like the duck-the-radar do-it-yourself life that I've been living. He says instead that by the Holy Spirit, I can cry out, Abba, "Daddy," "Father."

I don't understand this concept. What does a relationship with a heavenly Father who is God look like? I'm not yet ready to praise God for what He has done in arranging the circumstances of this move. How do I know He was involved at all? How do I know He wasn't? Do I have to know?

He is I AM. He exists outside of time and circumstance. This is the most comforting thing I know about Him. He will continue to change my heart and complete His work in me whether I'm here or in Charleston, whether I'm in a rental house I hate or a house of my own that I love. And He'll still be there if I lose everything. Not that I want to test that or anything.

We praise Him because He is God. If we have blessings, or our circumstances are wonderful, we thank Him for those too. But mostly, He is just God, and He deserves praise for that.

I have no idea if any of these thoughts connect. I needed to write today, to try to take the fuzzy edges off the surreality. Sometimes it's clearer when I write it for others. If you actually took the time to read both parts of this post, I thank you for walking with me.

He is I Am - Part I

Sometimes I call out Your name
But I cannot find You.
I look for Your face,
But You are not there.
By my sorrows, Lord,
Lift me to You,
Lift me to Your side.

Lord of Eternity,
Father of mercy,
Look on my fainting soul.
Keeper of all the stars,
Friend of the poorest heart
Touch me and make me whole.

~Fernando Ortega lyrics, Lord of Eternity
_________________________

It feels surreal.

I feel surreal.

My life is happening to me, around me. I have wept. I have laughed. I have been afraid. Excitement is building and crashing, rising and falling.

In the years since I loved and lost, I have not experienced this wild, uncontrollable sensation of pitching headlong forward in hope. I find I have not missed the feeling.

My survival instinct is retching, choking. It does not approve of the fall I am choosing. "You don't know if this is going to work!" My mind screams at me. "He's already let you down! You can't be serious!"

But I can't stay.

My heart found its way through a crack in the wall around it. Light had been glimmering there for a while; I neglected to repair it.

He kept telling me He loves me. I want Him to love me. But I want Him to love ME. No desires stripped. No death to dreams, just so I could be in His presence. No sacrifice, surrender, no loss.

I wrote a beginning for an article that won't be published:

The other night I found myself in my daughter’s nursery, scooping her from her crib, not caring if she woke from her all-too-rare sleep. I needed to hold her. Bathed in the gentle glow of the nightlight we keep in her room, I rocked and wept, raining her with gentle kisses, trying to pray, trying to somehow gain from God a guarantee that He could keep the pain away and be enough for me.

People had died. I couldn't ask that. He let them die. He lets life happen here. We chose it.

Conversations raised questions: "This is the God I know," I said of a kind, loving God who likes us. "This is the God who let my dad die." Oh. He did, didn't He.

I wrote about gentleness. He said, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Mt. 11:28-30, NKJV)

It's not easy, I screamed. You're not gentle. You want to destroy me because You want me to desire only You. Nothing changed. He did nothing to make it change. I'm heavy laden, and You don't care.

My heart broke; I didn't care. I railed at Him. I wanted to feel nothing.

My heart slipped free. It wanted to fly.

I don't enjoy free-falling.

What does He want?

"Your love."

I remembered. I remembered laughter. I remembered joy. I remembered spinning in the rain. I sang. I dreamed. The impossible was His. I lost then too. Surrender and sacrifice and asceticism were theological words for suicide and sepulchers.

I remembered I was His then. All of me. The pain, the joy, the hopes, the dreams.

I still am His.

The world is not His weapon. It is His creation. I am not His enemy. I am His creation. My friend capitalizes Life. I know why. He is alive, so I live. He is always alive. He has always been.

He is I AM.

He is eternal. He transcends time. He is infinite.

He is my portion. My heart won't be imprisoned again. It knows the Truth. It knows Life.